time had been less rigorous. The behaviour of
Prussia and Austria was, in truth, more important than the conduct of
the retreat. Unless those Powers were kept to their troth, not a
Frenchman would cross the Elbe.

At Smorgoni, then, on December the 5th, he informed his Marshals that
he left them in order to raise 300,000 men; and, intrusting the
command to Murat, he hurried away. His great care was to prevent the
extent of the disaster being speedily known. "Remove all strangers
from Vilna," he wrote to Maret: "the army is not fine to look upon
just now." The precaution was much needed. Frost set in once more, and
now with unending grip. Vilna offered a poor haven of refuge. The
stores were soon plundered, and, as the Cossacks drew near, Murat and
the remnant of the Grand Army decamped in pitiable panic. Amidst ever
deepening misery they struggled on, until, of the 600,000 men who had
proudly crossed the Niemen for the conquest of Russia, only 20,000
famished, frost-bitten, unarmed spectres staggered across the bridge
of Kovno in the middle of December. The auxiliary corps furnished by
Austria and Prussia fell back almost unscathed. But the remainder of
that mighty host rotted away in Russian prisons or lay at rest under
Nature's winding-sheet of snow.[280]

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST SAXON CAMPAIGN

Despite the loss of the most splendid army ever marshalled by man,
Napoleon abated no whit of his resolve to dominate Germany and dictate
terms to Russia. At Warsaw, in his retreat, he informed De Pradt that
there was but one step from the sublime _to the ridiculous_, that is,
from the advance on Moscow to the retreat. At Dresden he called on his
allies, Austria and Prussia, to repel the Russians; and at Paris he
strained every nerve to call the youth of the Empire to arms. The
summons met with a ready response: he had but to stamp his foot when
the news from East Prussia looked ominous, and an array of 350,000
conscripts was promised by the Senate (January 10th).

In truth, his genius had enthralled the mind of France. The
magnificence of his aims, his hitherto triumphant energy, and the
glamour of his European supremacy had called forth all the faculties
of the French and Italian peoples, and set them pulsating with
ecstatic activity. He knew by instinct all the intricacies of their
being, which his genius controlled with the easy decisiveness of a
master-key. The r